He too reveal’d, that candour bade mankind
Believe my haughty rival weak, and blind;
That all things wrong a ruling God denied;
Or a satanic imp that God implied
An imp, per chance of power and skill possest,
But not with justice, truth, or goodness blest.
Doctrines divine! would men their force receive,
And live to Satan’s glory, as believe.
Nor these alone: from every class of man,
I gain’d new aids to build the darling plan.
But chief his favorite class, his priests, I won,
To undermine his cause, and prop my own.
Here Jesuitic art its frauds combin’d
To draw ten thousand cobwebs o’er the mind.
In poisoned toils the flutterer to inclose,
And fix, with venom’d fangs, eternal woes.
On sceptic dross they stamp’d heavens image bright,
And nam’d their will a wisp, immortal light,
Thro’ moors, and fens the sightless wanderer led,
‘Till down he plung’d, ingulph’d among the dead.
To life, Socinus here his millions drew,
In ways, the art of Heaven conceal’d from view,
Undeified the world’s almighty trust,
And lower’d eternity’s great sire to dust.
He taught, O first of men! the Son of God,
Who hung the globe, and stretch’d the heavens abroad,
Spoke into life the sun’s supernal fire,
And mov’d to harmony the flaming choir,
Who in his hand immensity insolds,
And angels, worlds, and suns, and heavens, upholds,
Is — what? a worm, on far creation’s limb,
A minim, in intelligence extreme.
O wondrous gospel, where such doctrines rise!
Discoveries wondrous of most wondrous eyes!

Timothy Dwight: The Triumph of Infidelity (1788)